WASHINGTON - Although the controversies dominating political headlines eventually might undermine President Obama's standing with voters, a longer-term reality - a declining number of people who identify themselves as conservatives - could cause much more trouble for his Republican opponents. Republicans won big in the 2010 midterm election, taking control of the House and numerous state legislatures. That victory corresponded with a significant increase in the percentage of Americans calling themselves conservative, particularly on economic issues.

For decades, the U.S. debate over drug legalization has pitted conservatives on one side against libertarians and some liberals on the other. A few conservatives have publicly opposed the drug war (e.g., National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.), but most conservatives either endorse it or sidestep the issue. Yet vigorous opposition to the drug war should be a no-brainer for conservatives. Legalization would not only promote specific policy objectives that are near and dear to conservative hearts, it is also consistent with core principles that conservatives endorse in other contexts.

Now that "Avatar" has been named the best motion picture drama by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., making it a front-runner in the Oscar sweepstakes, does it mean the terrorists have won? Judging from the anger the movie has generated in some conservative circles, one might think so. Filmmaker James Cameron's science-fiction epic, which is on track to be the highest-grossing movie ever, has been widely derided as anti-American,liberal propaganda. That's funny, we thought it was just formulaic -- if incredibly artful -- escapist fantasy.

When liberals expand the reach and cost of government, we conservatives label them "knee-jerk. " However, conservatives have shown themselves to be enthusiastically knee-jerk in one area: criminal justice spending. For more than 40 years, conservatives have blindly supported a vast expansion of criminal laws and appropriated billions of dollars for new prisons to hold the inmates convicted under those laws. Now, the weight of those costs is sinking California's budget, siphoning off dollars that could go to schools, roads, hospitals or tax cuts.

Despite the fact that there have been many brilliant thinkers through the centuries who called themselves conservatives, it does seem that, when we look at things through the rearview mirror of American history, it is conservatives who are left stuck in the mud. Today's conservatives may call themselves tea partiers, but the original bunch that tossed boxes of tea over the side of British ships was a gaggle of radicals, not conservatives. In 1776, it was conservative people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a traitorous document.

Divorce is higher among religiously conservative Protestants - and even drives up divorce rates for other people living around them, a new study finds. The study, slated to be published in the American Journal of Sociology, tackles the “puzzling paradox” of why divorce is more common in religiously conservative “red” states. If religious conservatives believe firmly in the value of marriage, why is divorce especially high in places like Alabama and Arkansas? To figure that out, researchers from the University of Texas and the University of Iowa analyzed county divorce statistics against information from an earlier study of religious congregations.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Rand Paul is calling for conservatives to embrace the cause of immigration reform, outlining a proposal that would grant some form of legal status to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants after the federal government has certified that the border is secure. Paul's proposal, outlined in a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Tuesday, carefully avoided the term citizenship. Instead, the Kentucky senator said he sought a middle ground that would include a multi-year process of granting visas to undocumented workers that would hinge on the annual verification of the security of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Re "The right divide," Opinion, Jan. 11 Todd Gitlin's questioning spirit can only do conservatives good. Among the questions they might consider are: Does the "word of God" trump the Constitution? Is faith more reliable than reason? Should abortion be a crime? Are presidents free to violate statutory law, in wartime or otherwise; and if so, are presidents also free to determine when we are, or are no longer, at war? To what extent do we have the right to inflict casualties on other peoples to enhance our security?

A hard-line group demanded Friday that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad obey the country's supreme leader or risk losing the confidence of lawmakers from his own conservative political camp. The Front Loyal to Imam and Leadership, a group of 14 conservative political parties and organizations led by prominent hard-liner Habibollah Asgaroladi, demanded that Ahmadinejad consult with his supporters before making appointments to his Cabinet, which he must submit for approval within 12 days.

In response to Nelson's angry diatribe against "high-minded moralizing liberals," might I suggest that the biggest differences between liberals and conservatives would seem to be their views on two crucial points--personal freedoms and big business. Conservatives would reduce personal freedoms (through limits on abortion and civil rights, Judge Robert Bork, etc.), but allow big business to operate with a minimum of restrictions (resulting in such debacles as the Iran- contra affair and the Wall Street insider trading scandal)